An Engineer Officer Under Wellington in the Peninsular

Rice Jones, the writer of the diary and of most of the letters contained in this volume was a young officer in the Royal Engineers when he was sent to Portugal in 1809. He remained until 1812, ending his peninsular experiences at Ciudad Rodrigo where he successfully lead the 52nd and 43rd regiments into one of the breaches. His other main experiences were the Battle of Bussaco, the building of the Lines of Torres Vedras, and the abortive siege of Badajoz in early 1811. Writing of Rice Jones's role at Ciudad Rodrigo, the editor remarks "Of this exploit, our diarist supplies the briefest and most modest narrative that was probably ever penned by a son to his father."

Edited by Commander The Hon. Henry N. Shore, R.N., and first published in nine issues of the Royal Engineers Journal in 1912 and 1913. Much of the content consists of Shore providing general background to the author's experiences, comparisons with other accounts of some of the events, and summaries of diary entries that were, in his interest, not of professional interest.

Charles Oman these documents in an appendix to Volume 5 of his History of the Peninsular War, "Notes on some points of controversy regarding the storm of Ciudad Rodrigo."

Still another controversy, about which there is much in the Rice Jones papers, in the possession of Commander Harry Shore, R.N., is as to what engineer officers conducted the storming columns. Apparently some credit has been misplaced among individuals here, but to decide upon the point would take more space than a book like this can afford.

The content from the nine issues of the Royal Engineers Journal are separated into chapters in this edition.